From Little Things, Big Things Grow

(Picture from reusableart.com)

I'll be the first to admit that I was twenty-five before I ever saw an acorn in real life. Growing up in Australia, these were things of foreign woodland fairytales, and the coveted possession of the saber-toothed squirrel from Ice Age. Regardless of my limited first-hand experience, I have a fascination with the idea that oak trees all started with a tiny, broken acorn. Without breaking, an acorn would never reach its full potential, just as people never achieve greatness without stepping away from their comfort zones. Even the biggest among us started small.

I See Red runs with the theme of acorns and oaks. The acorn doesn't have to break and become a giant oak tree, but the option is always there for those who can endure the temporary brokenness. Life has a way of stalling for all the scared, reluctant acorns out there, withering away before they sprout. Resilience is the unsung hero of the majority of life's successes—so how can we make lemonade from the unfair, sour lemons that we hold in our hands? Many times throughout the story, the two main characters are faced with situations where they can give up, or press on towards something better.

It's important to take a moment and consider the withering acorns we know. Dallas, our six-year-old main character, is one acorn at very high risk of never reaching oak-status. In order to make productive choices in life, we have to have the right ingredients in our basket—the appropriate life skill tools that will propel us into the best versions of ourselves. At various points of I See Red, Dallas is expected to make better choices, when his life skill cupboard is bare. His teachers and parents want him to 'snap out of' his behaviors, when he doesn't have the ingredients to make better choices. They have basically given him spaghetti and cake, and demanded he make a pizza.

In just a few weeks, on January 12th, my novel I See Red will be released on Amazon Kindle. It is my hope that when you read it, you'll keep these little blog posts in mind. Sometimes we are all just little acorns waiting for our moment, wondering if we'll be brave enough to break.